As We Fall
by Ruby Casablanca
Summary: It's all too surreal, and he starts to wonder if this is all a nightmare, if he'll wake up and the last two years will never have existed. But he also wonders if he'll ever stop - if he even wants to stop - falling.


As We Fall

_How does one define tragedy? _

He never thought it would end like this. Feet teetering on the edge of the rooftop, looking down upon all that he thought he would have forever, greatcoat flapping in the wind. All those people down below, so ignorant to what had just happened, to what was about to happen.

He wished to be them, to have their naivety for just a moment, just so he could forget what lied on the other side of his choice.

_Is it the profound sense of loss? _

Everything was gone. Everything he strove to protect was in jeopardy, and for the first time he was truly lost. The genius was bested, and in his downfall he could no longer create a cohesive thought.

How could he have let them down like this? How could he do this to them? How could he have failed everyone so spectacularly? He was supposed to be a genius, the man with all the answers...and now he had none at all.

_Is it found in death?_

The body beside him was soaking the pavement with red, the blood of his enemy rolling in rivers from the hole the Consulting Criminal had put in his own head. A psychopath till the end. Some feral part of him wished that the man were alive so that he could put that bullet in his brain himself. It would only be fair. A life for a life, seeing as though he was the one who was really going to die, if not in body than in soul.

Yes, this was going to destroy him, and he was going to do it voluntarily.

_Down the barrel of the gun or the blade of a knife?_

He should have seen the gun earlier, should have known that victory would not come so easily. Of course, to others the ruination of a reputation and isolation of friends would not be considered "easy", but he had never cared about those things anyway. All he cared about in the world, he thought he could protect. But he was wrong.

So, so wrong.

And of course he could choose to walk away at any moment, to step down from his ledge and saunter away. And two years ago he would have, but he was not that man anymore. Sentiment had wormed its way into the fiber of his being, into his soul, and there was no escaping it.

No, he was going to do this. He was going to take one last bow so that the those who mattered most to him wouldn't.

_Is it the feeling of falling, hurtling towards the Earth at a million miles per hour with no way to slow the imminent impact to come? _

Sentiment. What a dirty, dirty condition. Mycroft was right in saying it was a defect. Because of sentiment he was about to ruin not only his own chance at a normal life, but also the chance of ever having a normal relationship with anyone ever again. He was resigning himself to a life of solitude, and he was fine with that really. He just wished that he didn't have to drag John down with him.

John deserved so much better, so much better than the pain he was about to inflict upon his best and only friend. His blogger.

He had hoped that it would not have to come to this. He had prayed that all his efforts would grant him this one mercy, but the world had never been particularly kind to him, not even as a child. And what other choice did he have anyway? There was jumping off a rooftop to his own end, or the end of not only himself but also the only three people he dared to say he felt for.

No more.

_Or is it the loss of oneself, to wake up one morning and find that there is nothing left of the person you once were? _

When he said he wasn't an angel, he thought he was just goading Moriarty into giving something away, but now that he has the time to ponder his words from his hellish isolation, he knows now that it wasn't all a lie. He wasn't a good man. He wasn't a hero, and so he felt justified in telling John not to call him one all those months ago even though at the time there was a satisfaction in being held at such a high esteem to someone so dear to his fragile, shattering heart.

He'll have to kill people now. He knew this when he fell weeks ago. He would have to change who he was, what his code of ethics was - not that he was very ethical to begin with. He'd have to truly become the sociopath he claimed to be for so long. And that fact alone was enough to make him cry himself to sleep. He didn't want to be what he claimed. He wanted to be who he was, the man John helped him to become.

But he gave up his right to wants long ago.

_For any of these could be the correct answer_.

It's not uncommon for him to wake up in the morning and not know who he is. The man in the mirror, the man covered in burns and scars, with muscle tone that was tense with abuse, that wasn't the man he was. This man was a shell, an outer covering that overtook the man he once was. He shoved the old him into a corner closet of his mind palace with the rest of his old life and locked it with a sound click. He didn't know where the key went...maybe he hid it. Maybe he threw it away.

Some days he lets himself remember who he used to be, why he needed to be who he was now. He dusts out the forgotten corners of his mind palace and wanders his old flat, laughs at the bullets in the walls and smells the tea John put on. But most days he is this brutish shell of a man, focused only on the next target, the next mission. Sometimes he forgets why he does this at all, why it's so important.

Some days he doesn't remember John at all - doesn't remember his favorite jumper (the red one that Harry got him one Christmas) or how he likes his tea in the afternoon (no sugar and just a little milk). And those are the days that he breaks down and curls in on himself, where he raves in self-loathing and begs his brother to take him home even though he knows that's impossible. John had left 221B so very long ago, and what is a home without the people there that make it so? But one day he'd be back. He promised. That is the only thing that keeps him going, and so he makes sure to keep that thought at the forefront of his mind whilst the ever-present pain he masks in drugs and cigarettes and the thrill of the chase.

There was no room for sentiment in a warzone.

_There is fear in tragedy, in death or falling or loss of purpose. But there is also an irrevocable need for redemption, an unmistakable yearning for life_.

Every life he takes, every sniper neutralized or dealer sentenced to life is just one step closer to his end goal. He's nearly done, and after two years, he's so very tired of this life he chose.

He's gotten better at remembering, about controlling his fear and his hopes alike. He's gotten so good at pretending he doesn't have any emotions at all that one could almost say he had none. And wasn't that his goal just two years ago? To rid himself of all sentiment, to commit himself to the work and his mind solely.

He didn't know what he was thinking then. A life without emotion, of pretending not to care and shutting everything back like a dam was worse than any part of his exile. One slip up, one moment of weakness and everything he has worked so hard for would fall apart.

He hoped that this would end soon, that he would find Sebastian Moran and put an end to him swiftly. The new information seemed promising, but nothing was ever for certain.

What was certain was that if Sebastian Moran didn't kill him, his emotions would.

_We reach for the sun when there is none._

The phone call from his brother mere moments after Moran's body was retrieved by the Turkish law enforcement was a godsend. He was bloody and broken and damaged from day's worth of intense torture, but he was alive, and that was all that mattered.

And the words "you can go home" that came from the other end of the line were all he needed to carry on. Enough to make him collapse to his knees in an instant of thanks to a God he didn't believe in.

Done. He was finally done.

_We strive for survival when the end is imminent. _

He was back in his old suit, with his old hair in his old city of London, and yet still something did not feel right. Other than the apparent bomber that he was brought back to put an end to. Yes, everyone was alive and well. Yes, London was still standing in his wake. But something had changed.

It wasn't John who had so obviously moved on with his life from the files he was handed. No, he was happy for his best friend. All he ever wanted for him was happiness. It wasn't his brother's uneasy happiness. It wasn't Anthea's unusual talkativeness. It was something in the air, something he could not put his finger on.

It was as if London no longer molded to him, and that scared him more than anything in the world, worse than Moriarty or Moran or the thought of never seeing John again.

Because it would kill him to admit that, after all he had done, Moriarty had won.

_Humans, we fragile creatures, are so strong in our desire to simply live that we cannot accept our ends when they come. _

The force from John's fist, though weak in shock, is greater than any wound he had sustained thus far. The punch might as well have been thrown into his soul, into his hopes and dreams of ever getting back to where he once was. And all it leaves behind is wreckage. Because if his own closest counterpart cannot stomach the sight of him, then how will anyone else be expected to welcome him back with open arms?

And he tries his best to explain, to get the words out. He just wants to tell John the truth: That he jumped for him and that everyone would have died had he not sacrificed his own life. But that just makes him sound like a damned martyr, and that was the furthest thing from what he was. And with each passing second, he gives up hope of John ever really accepting anything that comes out of his mouth.

How could he possibly believe the stories he would tell? How could John possibly be expected to believe that he was out making the world safe from Moriarty, killing people and facing death on a daily basis, enduring the worst kinds of pain, when he faked his own death, something John saw with his own two eyes?

He couldn't.

_And most often than not, our ends come when we are not looking, when our backs are turned to the sun and the wind howls for our attention._

Mary takes care of John in the way he used to. It's clear he's been replaced from the moment John chooses her over him. And really he can't blame him. Mary seems like a wonderful woman: witty and personable and all things John could ever want in a partner.

So then why is there this burning jealousy building in the pit of his stomach as he watches the pair roll away in a taxi, leaving him to wander back to nowhere in the dark of a London he scarcely recognizes? There are too many cities running through his brain now; the maps get all jumbled and run together, making a clear route impossible. He'll make his own way though.

He's been doing it for two years.

_We ignore the signs as we fall._

He doesn't know where he's headed until he's in front of the mortuary doors. Molly is there, this he knows. And when he goes in to see her, she just stares at him in shock. Though her eyes are wide, she does not utter a word of disbelief - she of all people knew he was truly alive - but not a word of joy as well. She is silent as a statue, and after a few moments of intense silence she brushes past him and exits the room.

The cold breeze she leaves in her midst is unmistakable.

_Blindly. _

Even though Lestrade hugs him, there is something hollow about it. The betrayal and confusion that lies behind that joy in his face is enough to dumbfound him. He never thought that the Detective Inspector cared, but obviously he was wrong. He supposed that nearly five years of babysitting would create some fondness, and that rips his already bleeding heart to shreds.

There are no more touches after that initial embrace, only questions, and even though he answers each with as much honesty as he feels comfortable telling, he can't mistake the emptiness in the older man's voice, the uncontrollable skepticism. A loss of trust and belief from the one man he thought would always be there for him.

The silver fox who had seen him through his darkest days had simply given up.

_Dumbly._

Mrs. Hudson screams, and really he expects nothing less from the dramatic landlady. And after the initial shock wears off, there are tears and slaps and hugs, all of which he feels far too unworthy of. She always had such a big heart…

He doesn't reject tea for the first time in her recollection, and if that isn't a sign to the way he has changed then everyone around him just wasn't paying attention. Not that anyone was around him anyway.

When he walks the stairs up to 221B, following carefully behind his elderly landlady, they feel haunted even though he is not in the least bit superstitious. The door creaks open with an unnatural squeal and the thick layer of dust in the air is enough to choke him. But everything is still the same, right down to the bullets in the wall and the skull on the mantle. Finally, after years of fighting to get there, he was home.

Except home wasn't home without John.

_Rapidly._

It dawns on him too late that he is a ghost. He is a ghost in a city that has learned to live without him. London rolls along and the Earth still spins but he's stuck in a standstill, forced to watch as everyone moves around him but never with him. He is out of synch but for the first time since the Fall he does not know how to fix it.

All those people he fought for pass him by. All those cases he solved and lives he saved go unnoticed. All relics of the past.

And just like that, he is falling again. There's a constant rush of air where others pass him by without a passing glance. And he can't breathe. The lights are too bright and the day is too cheery where he has conditioned himself to thrive in the darkness of night. It's all too surreal, and he starts to wonder if this is all a nightmare, if he'll wake up and the last two years will never have existed. But he also wonders if he'll ever stop - if he even _wants_ to stop - falling.

Because he never thought it would end like this: A slow descent that burned into his core with the sting of unfailing rejection.

_And by the time we turn around, our ends have already come. _


End file.
